It just shows how much Bob Grooters believes in the the city. That, or he realizes how underserved downtown Grand Rapids is for this type of housing, or how he can lock down the market for a few years by saturating the market.

Downtown Grand Rapids is terribly underserved and GR's timid, risk-averse developers have (mostly) sat on the sidelines for the past 6+ years, missing out on the single largest nationwide downtown-condo building boom we've ever seen. Now that the party is coming to a close we finally see GR developers test the waters in a significant way. Unreal.

What Grooters is finally doing looks great, but what a missed opportunity! This should have been built years ago with at least a couple similar-sized projects to follow.

^ Exactly. Theres over 1 billion on michigan street alone. So cool to live just a couple hundred feet from all that, watching things rise daily. If I didn't live on the hillside, then I wouldn't live in grand rapids.

Kind of off topic, but this is going up in New York, called the Avery. Look familiar?

Well, I'm not sure about you, but I'd say excess of $1 billion dollars in investment in any downtown is considered a boom.

$1 billion is nothing to sneeze at, but in major US cities that's not considered a boom; and considering the (unfortunate) general lack of high rises going up, it's hard to think of it as a boom in GR either.

It really is a shame GR developers have been so timid while urban developers in so many cities across the country rode the national urban housing boom, putting up condo tower after condo tower - and raked in the dough. Maybe next upswing GR's won't be so hesitant.

What major U.S. cities are you talking about? I hope you're not going to be comparing GR to cities many times its size. It's kind of ridiculous, too, to judge a cities boom off of how many high-rise residential towers it puts up. If you're going to make a comparison about downtown residential development, at least make it along the lines of solid, meaningful stats such as number of housing units constructed over a time period, or the monetary worth of the number of projects.

Please note I was disputing the claim that $1 billion dollars is considered a boom in any downtown. I’m not interested in getting into a semantical debate; obviously Grand Rapids is a smaller city. I will say that it’s disappointing that even with $1B, there are only a couple towers that are changing the skyline in a meaningful way.

Obviously a boom can impact any sector; the reason for the emphasis on residential is two fold: 1) the secret to a downtown that’s vibrant day and night is having people living there, and 2) the residential boom is what GR’s urban developers largely missed.

Urban developers all over have taken full advantage of two trends in recent years: 1) the return to the urban core, and 2) the national real estate boom. Yet GR’s timid developers seem to have missed the boat. If they rode the convergence of these two trends from the beginning (as others did), Grand Rapids could have easily put up several additional condo towers.

Are you aware that there is quite a residential renaissance occuring in the form of large-scale historic renovations? I seriously want to see your proof that developers aren't taking hold of the downtown living end of this. The fact that new-construction condo towers aren't going up all around is a pretty poor example of proof. If you do want to talk condo towers, though, show me another city the size of Grand Rapids that's currently putting up a nearly 400' condo tower (i.e. RiverHouse).

Yes, and all of that is terrific progress. RiverHouse is also great; unfortunately that’s the only new condo tower of significant height. The problem is that they got such a late start on it all. Construction on RiverHouse could have and should have started years ago.

And by the way Grooters is one of the more bold thinkers in GR development. It's not surprising at all that he's the one putting up the single tall condo building. Most of the rest of the local developers are so damn small minded.

I spent 21 years in Grand Rapids and think of it as home, thus my hope and expectation of higher standards. I can't compare to other small cities because I don't follow them, however I can and do extrapolate from the successes of major cities. I moved to southern California for the weather many years ago and love it, and am still cheering for GR. It has so much potential.

Looking good! The city really needs to start building upwards a little east from the river. A couple of 40+ stories towers would REALLY make the skyline impressive. As it is, I can't wait to see what it looks like once River House is finally done. I remember 10 years ago they were talking about making the "twin" to Bridgewater Place. It's about time they actually DID something!

$1 billion is nothing to sneeze at, but in major US cities that's not considered a boom; and considering the (unfortunate) general lack of high rises going up, it's hard to think of it as a boom in GR either.

It really is a shame GR developers have been so timid while urban developers in so many cities across the country rode the national urban housing boom, putting up condo tower after condo tower - and raked in the dough. Maybe next upswing GR's won't be so hesitant.

We're talking about Michigan here where the status quo is to let cities rot. A dollars investment in a city is considered a boom here. Needless to say, $1 billion being spent in any single downtown anywhere, I would consider a boom of some sort, especially in a city as small as Grand Rapids. This is just one period. There will be more in the future both larger and smaller than this incriment.

GR’s proposed $69M streetcar system could spur billions in redevelopment

If development along the proposed streetcar system in downtown Grand Rapids follows the patterns of other metro areas, the city’s current multi-billion dollar building boom could be just the beginning. The successful reintroduction of a streetcar in Portland, Oregon is a case in point.

Since Portland announced its downtown streetcar line in 1997, developers have been busy constructing new buildings and expanding old ones along the route. Today the city enjoys 126 percent more office, retail, residential, and institutional space within just three blocks of the streetcar line. In fact, 55 percent of all downtown development in the city's central business district during the last decade has occured within one block of the streetcar.

The now 4.8 mile streetcar route has cost Portland about $55 million to-date, but the project has helped leverage nearly $3 billion in urban redevelopment investment. And property values have jumped as much as 40 percent near the transit line.

“We’re looking at a new streetcar line for downtown,” said Roland Chlapowski, Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams’ liaison to the office of transportation. “One of the biggest landowners said they’d invest $200 million of development in the area [if we proceed]. And that’s just one landowner.”

The proposed Grand Rapids streetcar route would run nearly 2.5 miles from The Rapid Central Station at 250 Grandville, north along Monroe Avenue to Sixth Street, with six cars running at five-minute intervals.

Based on Portland’s experience, the result for Grand Rapids could be a significant increase in development and in foot traffic from businesses, residences, and educational facilities within about four blocks of the route. Major activity centers such as River House Condominiums, Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Monroe Center, the JW Marriott, and DeVos Place would not only be destinations for passengers, they would provide passengers, as well.

The route would also connect the Grandville Avenue, Heartside, Creston, and potentially, Belknap Lookout neighborhoods.

Local leaders Bing Goei, chairman of the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, Rick Chapla of The Right Place, Inc., former Mayor John Logie, and others recently visited Portland to get a firsthand view of that city’s streetcar system and the resulting development. A second, larger group of local leaders is planning to visit again this year.

On January 24, The Rapid Board of Commissioners voted to accelerate the study and design of the proposed streetcar system.